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" Jennifer Aniston owns a gold necklace \u2014 a gift from friends \u2014 with a charm blending good-luck symbols from around the world: an elephant, a horseshoe, and an owl. But lately, it looks as if that necklace can stay in Aniston&amp;#039;s jewelry box. She doesn&amp;#039;t need any talismans in her corner. America&amp;#039;s favorite Friend is looking happier than ever before, and it&amp;#039;s all thanks to her own hard work. She&amp;#039;s bounced back from tough times and blossomed in a new and wonderful way, say those close to her. &amp;quot;Jennifer has done some rebuilding, restructuring, realigning \u2014 and she came out this beautiful woman who is standing up tall and happy and full,&amp;quot; actress Andrea Bendewald, a close friend of Aniston since they attended high school together in New York City, has observed. &amp;quot;I look at her and say, &amp;#039;Slow down! You&amp;#039;re gonna start levitating soon, you&amp;#039;re so happy.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; At 39, Aniston has put the pieces to her personal happiness puzzle in place: Her film career is firing on all cylinders with roles in December&amp;#039;s Marley &amp;amp;amp; Me with Owen Wilson and next year&amp;#039;s romantic comedy He&amp;#039;s Just Not That Into You. She&amp;#039;s taking on new creative challenges \u2014 producing, directing, even singing. And she&amp;#039;s opened herself up to love again, with paparazzi shots capturing her canoodling from Miami to Mexico. Add to this the fact that she&amp;#039;s building her dream home by the water in her beloved Malibu, and it&amp;#039;s clear that she&amp;#039;s embracing life with a new kind of gusto.  How did she get to this enviable place? Here&amp;#039;s a closer look at her stealable secrets. 1. Transform your home into your personal sanctuary. Unlike many Hollywood stars who flit from one late-night party to another, Aniston revels in being at home. &amp;quot;If I don&amp;#039;t have a home base, I can&amp;#039;t ground myself,&amp;quot; she&amp;#039;s said. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a good springboard, having a solid home.&amp;quot; But Aniston has found that &amp;quot;solid&amp;quot; is only part of the story. A home also has to speak to the senses. When her fairy-tale marriage to Brad Pitt ended, she retreated to a cottage by the water, surrounding herself with cushy white sofas, white flowers, and white candles \u2014 as if wiping the slate clean \u2014 while she healed. More recently, she&amp;#039;s been experimenting with different moods and influences. She&amp;#039;s described the decor of the Hollywood Hills home that she bought in late 2006 as having &amp;quot;an Indonesian feel. I want it to be peaceful, warm, and inviting. I want to give people an experience when they come in.&amp;quot; And she works to create that experience: She shares her good friend Courteney Cox&amp;#039;s love of decorating, and the two have spent afternoons rearranging furniture. Recently, Aniston has delved a little deeper and realized that she feels most at home on the beach \u2014 &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m an Aquarian&amp;quot; is how she once explained the lure of the water. So she&amp;#039;s begun building an eco-friendly house in Malibu, where the sand and the water will glitter just outside her windows. While not many can afford to pick up and move to such a prime piece of waterfront real estate, Aniston&amp;#039;s example teaches a lesson few people would argue with: Your home should be a place that reflects your taste, feeds all of your senses, and soothes your soul.  Next Page: Read more about how Jennifer Aniston gets happy  2. Take care of yourself, from head to toe.  Even though Aniston once called exercise &amp;quot;cruel and unusual,&amp;quot; her well-toned body clearly says that she&amp;#039;s come to terms with it. Much has been written about how her dropping 20 pounds back in the 1990s set the stage for her quick rise to fame as Rachel on Friends (a role that earned her a million dollars per episode during the show&amp;#039;s final two seasons). Does maintaining her enviably lean figure mean she&amp;#039;s on a treadmill for hours at a time, seven days a week? Not at all. For Aniston, it&amp;#039;s all about moderation and variety, notes Mandy Ingber, her longtime friend and yoga teacher. &amp;quot;She works on her body. It doesn&amp;#039;t just happen. She does a little bit of everything, but she&amp;#039;s very moderate \u2014 it&amp;#039;s so good to have something manageable that you can do on a very consistent basis.&amp;quot; Aniston&amp;#039;s current regime shapes up as follows: Three to four days a week, she&amp;#039;ll log 20 minutes of cardio followed by 30 to 40 minutes of Iyengar-based hatha yoga, which focuses on alignment, breath, and inner awareness. Aniston&amp;#039;s routine incorporates sun salutations and basic poses like half-moon, standing splits, and pigeon. She has raved about the results: &amp;quot;Yoga makes you feel strong. Inner strength, I love it!&amp;quot; On other days, she uses an elliptical machine to complete her low-impact routine. The benefits Aniston gets from working out go beyond that fabulous body. &amp;quot;You can be in a very uncomfortable yoga position, and you learn to relax into it,&amp;quot; says Ingber. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a great lesson for daily life. It&amp;#039;s easier when you don&amp;#039;t struggle against things that are coming your way.&amp;quot; Indeed, Aniston&amp;#039;s fitness plan has evolved over the past few years into a wellness philosophy. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s really taken care of herself the entire time,&amp;quot; says Ingber. &amp;quot;Self-care \u2014 meaning exercise, what you put into your body, everything from flossing to acupuncture \u2014 she does all these things. And those actions of self-care are actions of self-love. And that&amp;#039;s what she&amp;#039;s emanating.&amp;quot; Aniston seems to have nailed a simple, valuable truth here: The better you care for yourself, the better you&amp;#039;re able to enjoy your life.  3. Know the value of a splurge... And savor it! A life of moderation is a good thing, but there also has to be room for some spontaneous fun. Aniston is clearly a woman who knows that occasional treats can add a little jolt of joy to daily life. For instance, she usually eats three healthy, low-carb meals a day; salmon is a favorite source of protein. But she indulges in a decadent treat every once in a while. She&amp;#039;ll tuck into a double cheeseburger with onions from L.A.&amp;#039;s legendary fast-food joint In-N-Out Burger. Or whip up a batch of her signature guacamole and a margarita. The other cocktail Aniston admits a fondness for? &amp;quot;Dirty martinis. I can manage about three,&amp;quot; she&amp;#039;s confessed.  Aniston&amp;#039;s sense of balance has impressed her coworkers: &amp;quot;She absolutely has a body to be envied by us all, but I find it very refreshing to not be able to count ribs, because that&amp;#039;s something very prevalent in L.A.,&amp;quot; says Ginnifer Goodwin, who costars with Aniston in He&amp;#039;s Just Not That Into You. &amp;quot;An actress&amp;#039;s diet can be coffee and cigarettes...that is not Jennifer Aniston&amp;#039;s regimen.&amp;quot; Aniston isn&amp;#039;t afraid to splurge in other ways, too. She knows that little pick-me-up gifts can be good for the soul. Although she is the rare A-list star who has said she &amp;quot;hates to shop,&amp;quot; she does get a thrill from snagging some new jewelry now and then. In fact, Aniston launched her favorite jewelry designer, Jennifer Meyer \u2014 wife of Spider-Man&amp;#039;s Tobey Maguire \u2014 to fame by wearing her signature 18-karat-gold leaf pendant in 2006&amp;#039;s The Break-Up. When it comes to retail therapy, Aniston clearly knows that it&amp;#039;s good to be good to yourself. Next Page: Read the final steps to Jennifer Aniston&amp;#039;s happiness plan  4. You&amp;#039;ve got to have friends.  Aniston didn&amp;#039;t just play a loyal friend on TV: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always wanted good friendships, and I was inspired to create them by watching my mom with her girlfriends,&amp;quot; she&amp;#039;s noted. Aniston has achieved her goal \u2014 her friends formed a tight and supportive circle around her during her tough times, and they are there to celebrate the good with her, too.  Even with her crazy-busy schedule, Aniston spends as much face time with her friends as possible. She&amp;#039;s often spotted walking on the beach with Courteney Cox and frequently joins Courteney and husband David&amp;#039;s Sunday-night dinners. Aniston even finds ways to connect when on the set. Says her friend and makeup artist Angela Levin: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll be putting makeup on [her], and she&amp;#039;ll grab a little cheek color and put it on me and say, &amp;#039;You need a little color on your face.&amp;#039; It&amp;#039;s really funny. She&amp;#039;s a very wonderful girlfriend.&amp;quot;  When she can&amp;#039;t spend time in person with her pals, Aniston reaches out with thoughtful little gestures. Somehow, she makes these look effortless. Just ask Jake Gyllenhaal, who costarred with her in 2002&amp;#039;s critically acclaimed The Good Girl and has been a buddy ever since. &amp;quot;Birthdays, celebrations, or anything, she always thinks of me,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;She calls or sends something. She&amp;#039;s so busy, and she seems to make time not just for me, but for everybody.&amp;quot; Thanks to this thoughtfulness, Aniston has cultivated close friends who are always there for her. 5. Do what you don&amp;#039;t know how to do. Obviously, Aniston&amp;#039;s DNA is hard-coded for creativity: She&amp;#039;s an actor. But now, on the brink of turning 40, she&amp;#039;s challenging herself in new ways. In fall 2006, she codirected the short film Room 10 with friend Andrea Buchanan, and she and producing partner Kristin Hahn recently landed a deal at Universal Pictures for their new company, Echo Films. Aniston&amp;#039;s pet project, The Goree Girls, tells the true story of eight Texan inmates who start an all-female country-western band in prison. Aniston plans to work her musical mojo and star in the film. &amp;quot;I can carry a tune, and I was known to throw out a jazz hand from time to time in high school,&amp;quot; she has joked.  &amp;quot;[One thing] I really love about Jennifer is she wants to do a broad range of things,&amp;quot; says Ken Kwapis, director of He&amp;#039;s Just Not That Into You. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s great about the choices she makes is that she seems really motivated to tell stories that resonate with her personally, and that&amp;#039;s why they resonate so clearly with audience members. Because when I look out into the audience and see the rapt faces of people when they&amp;#039;re watching a scene with Jennifer, especially an emotional scene \u2014 wow \u2014 that can&amp;#039;t be beat.&amp;quot;  What those audience members are connecting with, no doubt, is the wise way Aniston tackles life&amp;#039;s ups and downs. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve learned that you can get through things that hurt,&amp;quot; she&amp;#039;s said. &amp;quot;My pain was real...but people are unbelievable. We have such resilience.&amp;quot; Certainly, the way she&amp;#039;s rolled up her sleeves and developed her own happiness recipe is proof of this resilience. With a spirit like that, it looks like her lucky-charm necklace can stay tucked away for keeps. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/interviews/a12773/jennifer-aniston-happiness-plan/>